OpenWrt has been originally developed for resource-constrained platforms. Consequently, even on x86, it doesn't have a traditional installer. Rather than install software, you copy an image onto the boot drive. That image is fairly small (about 120 MB in recent versions), so out of the box, OpenWr...

pfSense includes a nifty add-on package called LCDproc. It is used to display system information on a tiny LCD screen that some rack-mountable devices have on the front panel.

LCDproc is not installed by default. Moreover, it doesn't work with every imaginable LCD display (there are quite a few of...

A little while ago, we published a note detailing installation of pfSense on Sophos SG 105 and SG 115 models (and, by extension, on hardware-identical XG 105 and XG 115). Since then, pfSense 2.7 was released. For some reason, the final phase of installation described in that note doesn't work with...

Watchguard Firebox M400 is going out of support in June 2023, so there might be an influx of these devices into the secondary market. In our opinion, this device is perfect for OPNsense nano...

The M400 is a very straightforward x64 device (we believe it is actually made by Lanner, probably one...

Realtek network interface cards have a bad reputation in the pfSense community. At least a part of it is due to the old Realtek drivers that ship with pfSense. However, it is possible to swap those drivers for newer ones used in OPNsense. Here's how.

First, find the driver in the OPNsense reposito...

pfSense includes a nifty add-on package called LCDproc. It is used to display system information on a tiny LCD screen that some rack-mountable devices have on the front panel.

LCDproc is not installed by default. Moreover, it doesn't work with every imaginable LCD display (there are quite a few...

Cisco Meraki MX60 has a reputation of being reliable, but slow. Indeed, what can we expect from a low-end product released all the way back in 2012? More to the point, the MX60 was designed to be a branch router, providing a small group of remote workers with VPN connectivity to the central office....

Sophos has great networking equipment. Also, Sophos actively encourages their customers to upgrade to newer models. Older models, while still serviceable, periodically go out of support. Specifically, XG 85, SG 105, and XG 105 (and their wireless counterparts) went out of support in August 2022. All...

This note is intended for users who have some experience in general computing and system administration but are relatively new to OpenWrt. It is loosely based on the relevant sections of the official OpenWrt on x86 Hardware wiki page:

https://openwrt.org/docs/guide-user/installation/openwrt_x86 ...

This note is intended for the relatively new users who have some experience with general computing and system administration but still need a little friendly handholding in some OpenWrt-specific matters.

If you decide to go through with this procedure (which is not very difficult), we suggest read...